If you have allergies in your family and love to cook

[Anonymous]

Do you have any resources with ideas or discussions on how to adapt recipes, rather than just adapted recipes?

We're dealing with tree nut and peanut allergies, and as someone who loves to cook I often come across recipes that I can't use as is, but suspect are adaptable. I'm wondering if there's a resource (Facebook group? Cookbook?) that would help me.

[Anonymous]

We don’t have the peanut allergy. But I often substitute seeds for other nuts. I haven’t found it an issue to avoid nuts in general, as the number of truly nut centric dishes are small — are there specific dishes you want to make?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We don’t have the peanut allergy. But I often substitute seeds for other nuts. I haven’t found it an issue to avoid nuts in general, as the number of truly nut centric dishes are small — are there specific dishes you want to make?

I love summer rolls, and need to figure out a dip that's not peanut sauce.

I also have gotten really interested in Spanish food, there are a lot of stews and other dishes that are thickened with almonds.

Those are the two things on my mind right now.

[Anonymous]

Thickners you could try: bread crumbs, corn starch, ground sunflower seeds and ground pumpkin seeds (the latter two for things like almond sauce for meatballs.)

Btw I think a lot of Spanish recipes use almonds because they are so plentiful and cheap. So it’s an easy way to add protein and mouthfeel to a dish. But unless you are making polvorones or tarta de Santiago where the almond is the star, the other things may work as substitutes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We don’t have the peanut allergy. But I often substitute seeds for other nuts. I haven’t found it an issue to avoid nuts in general, as the number of truly nut centric dishes are small — are there specific dishes you want to make?

I love summer rolls, and need to figure out a dip that's not peanut sauce.

I also have gotten really interested in Spanish food, there are a lot of stews and other dishes that are thickened with almonds.

Those are the two things on my mind right now.

For summer rolls do a Nuoc cham vinaigrette. https://drivemehungry.com/vietnamese-dipping-sauce/

Try using sunbutter in your peanut sauce recipe, it will probably work ok

[Anonymous]

I'm not looking for suggestions for adaptations here. I'm looking for a suggestion for resources.

[Anonymous]

I just google for substitutions if it's not something I can automatically sub out in my head. I think about allergen-free recipes I've used that have a similar [whatever I'm looking for] and experiment.

For example, I've tried various dairy-free yogurts for spice cake but it never tastes right. However, I have a chocolate apple-sauce cake the has a similar zing to it, so I tried spice cake with apple sauce and it work nicely to replicate the acidic/fermented taste real yogurt produces. Thickeners, as a PP noted, can come from other stews/sauces that don't call for almonds. My mind also when to coconut cream but that depends on whether that triggers your tree nut allergy or not.

[Anonymous]

I have Celiac disease. One of my kids has tree nut allergies, the other one is allergic to peanuts, and DH is lactose intolerant (he's the biggest pain of all of us, ha). I'm a little confused by your question. People are providing suggestions for adaptations for recipes, but you're looking for suggestions for resources that will tell you how to adapt recipes?

To be honest, when I come across a recipe I want to adapt, I use google and see if anyone has adapted it before. Recipe name + nut free or gluten free. Especially if you are making something that has an online version with comments someone is always, always asking for substitutions in the comments. Without fail. So I use recipes on the internet a lot for this reason - especially NYT, Smitten Kitchen, and more popular blogs with an active community who regularly test the recipes and comment with their adaptations. It's very helpful and I've learned a lot about how to adapt recipes in general that way!

[Anonymous]

Agree with above.

My child has Celiac. Google the recipe with the modification you want to make. Also, the comments section might even have a substitution or suggestion to help you. Our family has been gluten free over 6 years and I can now figure out a lot of modifications on my own.

[Anonymous]

One of our daughters eats a low-FODMAP diet. Onions, garlic and cooked celery are three of the worst culprits for her. I just drop them from the recipe. If I need to add some heat, I'll do it with other ingredients. I pretty much do this without thinking although you would be surprised at how many entree recipes use those three ingredients. I think something like a nut allergy would be a little easier to deal with for entrees but more difficult for sweets.

[Anonymous]

No tree nuts or peanuts in any of our dishes. The most problematic used to be almonds, since a lot of our cake recipes contain almonds, especially the French King's cake for Epiphany. We've had 17 years of alternative King's cake! But good news: DS can now eat almonds and cashews! He still can't have pistachios and peanuts, and we need to do a food challenge for hazelnut next... if he passes that, all the chocolate pralines and Nutella type foods are open to him!